Thursday, August 16, 2012

THE LOGGER'S STORY

One man who spent many solitary hours in searching (for Sasquatch) had phenomenal success and has contributed a great deal of information, yet is unknown to most of the public. He has passed on what he has seen, so that it is on the record, but he has asked to remain unidentified and those he has dealt with have generally respected his wishes.

His motivation to spend as much time as he did was strong and understandable, since it began with an accidental sighting that is one of the most unusual on record -- the only close observation of a "family" group involving an infant. After that he spent a great deal of time in trying to see more, and at first was remarkably lucky, but later spent years having no better luck than the rest of us.All of his experiences took place in the mountainous area drained by the Molalla and Clackamus Rivers south of Estacada, Oregon, where he worked as a logger. His first, accidental, sighting was in October, 1967, the same month that Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin got the movie. After that dedicated searching resulted in further sightings in the spring of 1968 and in November and December of that year. From then until a heart attack restricted his activities several years later he continued to search without another sighting, although he did find some very interesting tracks in February of 1969.

As far as I know the report of his first encounter is the only one ever put on tape. This is the story he told:

I was supposed to be watching a catskinner as he was fire trailing, but it was awful cold, and I walked a mile or so down the trail, because he had no need of anyone at that time, and I thought I'd warm up and see the country. Up where he was it was a cold east wind blowing; a little farther down it was a west wind coming in. It was late fall, and the last weekend of the deer season, I think, in 1967.

It was just a mountain trail - they have several of them up there -- footpaths, and for horses. The elevation was about between four and five thousand feet. I came out lower down, into the fog, before I saw anything, and the fog was freezing on the trees because it was so cold, but if the wind would blow, the fog would break, and fall off. That made it kind of noisy, it sounded like walking.I came around a bend -- well, first I noticed some rocks that were turned over. All the other rocks were wet, because of the fog, but these rocks were dry. Then I looked up, about forty or fifty feet, up on a ridge of rock, and I saw these animals there -- looked like human or just about. Large male; the female wasn't so large; and a small baby -- well not really small; it was moving with them. It was standing up, mostly. The two older ones were squatting down and sort of bending, as they picked up rocks and smelled them. They were kind of careful. They moved on for a few minutes, and then finally the male found possibly what he was looking for and dug real fast down into the rocks, which were large boulders -- not the round type of rock but the flat, sharp kind.I could not explain why those rocks were there; there hadn't been a slide or anything. They were on top of the ridge, so they couldn't have come down from anywhere. They are loose, quite a few holes underneath them, and they are as if they had been broken up -- definitely not the round river-type rock. But they (the animals) would pick them up, and, after they smelled them, they would lay them own, on top of each other. They didn't just lay them back where they had picked them up, they stacked them up, in piles. And when the male found what he was looking for he really made the rocks fly. The big rocks weighed fifty, sixty or even possibly a hundred pounds; he just jerked them out with his hand. He didn't seem to take any precautions for his safety. Later on I looked, and there was some rock there that could have fallen on him, but he wasn't concerned.He brought out what appeared to be a grass nest, possibly some stored hay that small rodents had stored there. He dug through that, and brought out the rodents. It seems they ate them. The rodents appeared to be in hibernation, or asleep, or something. There were about six or eight rodents. The small animal, I noticed, only got one, but the others got two or three apiece.But about that time they became aware of my presence and well, just became alert. I was alongside of this trail that follows the ridge. I didn't remember getting there, but I was squatting down behind a small tree when I became aware of where I was. As soon as they realized I was there they suddenly began to move, real quiet, behind some low-hanging limbs on a tree there. I didn't see them again after that.

I tried to follow their tracks in the direction I thought they would have to go, but I couldn't find any, although there was heavy frost there. But the next day I found two tracks, a heel print and the front part of the foot, the toes, but they were in a different direction -- the direction from which I had come -- and I never did connect them up with exactly which direction they had gone, or know anything about them.

The footprints, I would say, were about twelve to fifteen inches, but there wasn't enough of the track to tell exactly. They were possibly five inches wide, I don't know, at the widest part. I don't think they could have been six. I didn't know if it was one of the animals I had seen that made the footprints.

I saw the toe print as I came up out of the old landing. I saw the heel print as I went in. The heel print gave me the impression that the heel protruded. The tracks were in dirt. It was just as if you had a level piece and scooped it out for about two feet deep, and it would cave in some. It (the animal) had stepped down into that, and left a heel print, and as it stepped out on the other side you could see the toe print.

When I left the catskinner, he was on Low Creek, but I had walked to Jim's Meadows, possibly a mile or more. I saw the footprints between where the catskinner was and where I had seen the animals.After the animals disappeared I watched and looked a few minutes and then decided I didn't want to go in that direction. So I just headed back. I didn't tell the catskinner about seeing them. I didn't tell anyone about it until ..... asked me to ask among my crews, maybe some of them had seen them. That was the only time I ever mentioned it to any of the fellows out there, because I didn't want everybody to think I was a nut or something or other.The only time I saw their faces was when they became alert. They gave me the impression of having a face a little like a cat, without the ears. I couldn't remember seeing any ears. It seemed like the nose was much flatter -- it didn't stick out like a humans. The upper lip was very short, and seemed to be thin. I couldn't remember that it had a chin like a human has. So somehow or other I felt that it was a face more like a cat than a human.

The male was darker than the female, a dirty brown, where the female was a buckskin or fawn-colored animal. The male had much longer hair on his shoulder, head and neck, and hung in strings, like you see on an Angora goat. He was much heavier in the shoulders than the female. From just above the hips the male got larger; he had a very wide "small " of the back. From there on up he just got bigger and bigger. They had very rounded or stooped shoulders. The head was set lower on the shoulders than a humans. They don't seem to have a neck "stand up" as we do.Most of the time they were not standing, but were squatting down and leaning forward to pick up the rocks. I didn't see them actually erect until they became alert that I was there. I didn't see them walk, as such. The only movement I saw was when they made a quick, short dash to get behind the limbs of the trees. I saw them move all right, but in a humped up, stooped over position, just moving across the rocks. But they were upright when they made that quick dash at the end. It seemed to me that the mother picked the baby up on her lap, and ran holding the baby in front of her possibly right below the breast, and her breasts hung real low, much lower than a human.I couldn't say how thick through the body these animals were, but they were very heavy-set - particularly thick and heavy at the small of the back, and on up through the ribs. I think the male was over six feet tall, but I'm an awful judge of height or weight or anything. I didn't think the female was quite as tall as the male, in fact I think she came possibly up to his shoulder, but I saw them standing up so little I don't know. But they were much larger than a human, much bulkier. The baby didn't come up to the mother's hips, actually, I don't think but I don't remember for sure. The first time I saw them standing up was as the male stepped out of the hole he dug with the grass, but it was only a very short while until they took off. I didn't see them after that.Q: How did they eat?A: They ate just taking it in their hand and eating it as one of us would if we were eating a banana. They ate it skin, feathers and all - just bit it in two, and as they would bite part of it well then just cram the other right on in. The little one, though, he had a little more difficulty, because he didn't have quite enough room for all of it, where the older ones did. It wasn't like a human would hand the food to the baby, he had to get his - he was scratching through the grass that they had and got it himself, and the female did the same thing. They gave you the impression in that way of not taking care of the baby like people would. I've been wondering now if that group lived together as a family, and I hope to go back and look into it deeper._____________This case was taken from the book "On the Trail of the Sasquatch", Book 2 by John Green.